


Not beside but within

by disappointionist



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, also some cursing/swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7263622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disappointionist/pseuds/disappointionist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan thought he knew what to expect when he volunteered to model for Arin. He thinks it might be awkward, and then he thinks it couldn't be much different from being on stage. It ends up being like none of these.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not beside but within

“Are you sure you don’t need me to take my shirt off?” Dan asks, instantly wondering what the fuck that was and where it came from.  

Arin smiles and lets out a low-pitched chuckle. “I just want you to be comfortable dude. And fabric is hard anyway,” he says, eyes already fixed on his sketchpad, a gentle scraping of the tip of his pencil over the surface, as if he is mapping out the blank space.

It’s probably true, Dan thinks, but he hadn’t heard Arin comment on feeling inadequate at drawing _clothes_ when he said he needed to get back into life drawing, and Dan is _here to help_. So he straightens up without another word (because Arin is an arguer and Dan’s not going to argue about this) and pulls his shirt off, tossing it to the side next to the couch.

The scratching from Arin’s pencil stops, picking up again only when Dan settles down into the position he was in. Lying on his left side, right knee slightly bent, head propped up in his hand, a few pillows under his ribs for support.

Dan fixes his eyes on the TV, and realizes that he should probably remember the plot of this movie even if he has just seen it one and a half time before. Arin put it on for him, or, well, Dan had told Arin that he didn’t actually care, and now some actor in a very bad wig and an increasing state of dishevelment was running around on the screen behind Arin’s right shoulder. Audio close to muted, subtitles on.

 

“Chin up a little?” Arin says, his voice is soft and not like a demand at all. Dan does as he’s instructed, tilting his head up. “And maybe a bit to your right?” Arin continues, as if he’s not the one who actually knows what he’s after.  
Dan turns his head and it actually takes some strain off his neck, so he’s grateful when Arin doesn’t seem to want to adjust anything else after that. 

 

It feels different than what Dan assumed when he volunteered for this. Somehow, he thought that it would be like on center stage. He was used to being looked at by a lot of people at once by now, he’d done improv, grumps live and a whole bunch of gigs with his bands.  
Except now, when he’s lying on the couch in his living room, house quiet and empty apart from Arin, himself, and the TV, he can’t really figure out what he was thinking then. He has never done anything close to being intensely studied, by just one person, in minute detail, for the duration of what could possibly be the full one hundred and sixty-five minutes of the movie.  

Dan hadn’t even known that you could feel looks, at least not in the way he felt Arin’s eyes on him as soon as he started drawing. He realizes, that It’s nothing at all like being in front of a crowd, it’s a lot closer, almost like something he could touch.

 

Dan shifts his gaze. With the way his head is slightly turned, Arin is sitting at a much more comfortable angle for Dan to look at than the TV screen is. He’s already way deep in his work. Dan knows that look from some days when Arin has his headphones on in the office and it’ll take Dan at least five tries to get through to him. Except there’s no headphones now, no sharp glow from the computer screen. It’s just Arin, neck slightly tilted forward. Strands of his hair fanning down on the right side of his face. He keeps biting his lip for a few seconds before he picks up the eraser and changes something, and Dan finds that pretty endearing.

 

This could have been awkward, he thinks. He even expected it to be, as Arin walked in the door with takeout for dinner. But it’s not, not really.  
They have a quiet now, one that Dan recognizes with a warmth in his body. Perhaps it’s their particular shared wavelength, he’s not sure. But he knows that he’s never figured out how to slip into it so easily with anyone else.

Dan kind of wishes that he could hear Arin’s thoughts, just once, in this silence. He remembers Arin saying that they can be jumbled, and that they sometimes go by at such pace that he barely has time to grasp what they mean before they vanish again. Dan wonders if it’s the same even when Arin looks this calm, _serene_ even.  
Arin looks up, but he doesn’t seem startled that Dan is looking back at him. Maybe, Dan thinks, that feeling of being studied goes both ways. He blinks in a kind of recognition, and as if that's his cue, Arin’s gaze shifts down to Dan’s neck, then back to the drawing pad again.

 

There’s a war going on, on the other side of Arin’s shoulder, and Dan can’t remember the last time he was so _aware_. But he sees now that there’s dust in the air in front of the TV, and that Arin’s eyelashes cast shadows, constantly moving, like gobos over his cheeks.  
When Arin looks at Dan’s hands, Dan doesn’t flex them in sudden self-consciousness, he relaxes instead. Arin’s gaze is starting to feel like a warm blanket wherever it settles.

It’s lulling, the muffled sounds from the movie, which Dan is only very rarely glancing at now or catching at the corner of his eye. Arin’s drawing which sometimes sounds like wisps and scratches, sometimes seemingly continuous swoops that last for several seconds.

 

The movie ends, but Dan doesn’t move through the credits. Arin is still drawing, legs drawn up and his back curled as he leans over the pad. He looks up at Dan and back down again, at a lot shorter intervals, and Dan stays put. Mostly because he thinks this might mean that Arin is nearly done, but also because he’s a bit worried just how much pain he will realize that he’s in if he tries to stretch even a little.

“Okay,” Arin says. The credits over since perhaps a couple of minutes, during which Dan has been listening to their breathing, which either has become or maybe just was, surprisingly synced.  
Dan smiles, and very very slowly moves his arm. It’s uncomfortable and annoying but he manages to lower himself down. He rolls over onto his back and lets out a groan.  
“Oh boy, I will be awkwardly sore in so many places tomorrow,” he laughs, surprised at just how rough his voice is. It sounds like he’s been screaming, not sitting in near complete silence

 

He hears Arin shuffle around, and before he expects it, Arin is kneeling next to the couch. Dan turns his head so that he can look at his best friend.

“Did it go okay?” he asks, quietly now that he’s realized that his voice can’t really carry properly.  
“I guess,” Arin says, which Dan is aware can mean just about anything. “I did a few quick ones at first,” he continues. Dan can only nod. He’s not exactly tired, more content.

“Do you want to see the last one I did, though?” Arin asks after a few moments.  
Dan is surprised, but he doesn’t know why.  
“I mean, yes, of course, but only if you really want to,” he says. He doesn’t say: _I did this for **you**_ , because it sounds like too much in his head.

When Arin moves to get his pad, Dan sits up, drawing his knees toward his chest. If he takes it slowly it’s almost endurable, and he can leave room for Arin to sit down on the couch. When he’s offered the sketchpad, Dan takes it gingerly holding it against his legs as he looks at what Arin has drawn.

 

At first he thinks, holy fuck, is that what I look like? And then, as an afterthought, holy fuck is that what I look like _to Arin_?

 

“You’ve improved me,” Dan says fondly, looking up at Arin with a smile, but Arin shakes his head fervently.  
“I couldn’t,” Arin says. He’s not smiling back.

Dan moves at what feels like a sluggish pace, folding his legs down over the edge of the couch. Carefully placing the drawing on the coffee table.

Reaching over with his right arm, the one that isn’t still tingling, he tugs at Arin’s hoodie. He’s not actually sure what the hell it is that he’s going for, an awkward, one-armed embrace, possibly.  
But then he Arin is right there,  his beard brushing Dan's cheek, and with a sharp sense of clarity, Dan presses his lips against Arin’s. And that _fits_ , because that’s how it’s always been with the two of them. Dan doesn’t know what the hell he is doing until he’s right there with Arin by his side and then it somehow manages to fall into place. It’s moving to California, it's making videos about games, it's whatever this is, all at once.

He means it as a  _thank you_ \- kind of a kiss, so brief that Dan doesn’t expect Arin to even have time to respond to it. Except Arin does, or maybe Dan isn’t as quick on pulling back as he thinks he is, but there’s at least nothing brief about it at all anymore. Arin wraps one hand in Dan’s hair and Dan moans in a way that feels unfamiliar in his own throat, but Arin seems to be trying to catch that sound, and Dan helplessly makes it again.

 

Dan winds up in Arin’s lap, kissing him open mouthed and heavy, breath tingling in his lungs. He has his hand wrapped around the back of Arin's neck, and he feels light-headed with the way Arin's hair smells up close. Which is something he's always done, really, he just never recognized it in this way before. Dan thinks that he is far too deep already, and oh fuck, oh god, what the hell. And he thinks Suzy, Suzy, Suzy, and Arin’s hand is running over his chest and Dan suddenly remembers that he isn’t wearing a shirt and how he’s not sure if that was a very wise or very very stupid decision in the light of things.

“Arin,” Dan pants against Arin’s lips because he needs Arin to stop kissing him because Dan himself isn’t sure he knows how to.

It’s like pushing an escape button, because Arin breaks the kiss instantly, drawing his hands out of Dan’s hair and settling them almost carefully on Dan’s knees instead.  
“Yeah,” Arin whispers to him, he looks concerned.  “You okay?”

“I don’t… know,” Dan says, trying to catch up with this high, this rush of thoughts flooding him. “I mean, Yes. _Jesus Arin_ , you can really kiss,” he says, and he tries to laugh, but he notices somewhere mid-way that he’s shaking. “And also no. No. Both, maybe?” He pauses, tries to will himself to get out of Arin’s lap but he can’t possibly. There’s too much body heat, too much current between them. “Are you?” He asks instead, trying to interrupt his own train of thought.

Arin bites his lip. Thinking about correcting something, Dan thinks, and he hooks a finger in the neckline of Arin’s t-shirt, looking down at the contrast of his own hand against the dark fabric.

“I’m mostly certain this is a dream,” Arin says after a while. “Because this seems like the kind of thing that would only happen to me then”  
“What does?”  
“Just you,” Arin lets out a laugh, but it’s so very soft and kind and warm. 

Dan doesn’t remember how to breathe properly and he has to shut his eyes. He still can’t bring himself to move back to his end of the couch, and Arin doesn’t exactly seem to want to get rid of him. Dan does however, reach down and pick up the t-shirt from the floor, balling it up in his hands while he wishes that they didn’t have to talk about it. With a sigh, he pulls the shirt back over his head, and it makes him feel a little more steady.

 

“Sometimes I would like to hear what you were thinking. Like, just for a little while,” Arin tells him when their eyes meet  
“I’m pretty sure you just did,” Dan says, and he can’t help but smile.

“Can we just… for like, five minutes-” Arin begins.  
“Yes, please,” Dan interrupts, because at the very least their individual thoughts seem parallel.

Arin isn’t quite smiling, but he looks more relaxed than he did a few seconds earlier. Dan shifts, sliding down behind Arin’s legs, his back against the sofa cushions, stretching his own legs out across Arin’s. He lets out a breath of relief when Arin wraps his arm around his waist, and he allows himself to lean against Arin’s side because of it.

It’s not a substitute for the talking they will have to do, Dan thinks, but it’s what he needs, almost desperately, for the moment. Just quietly breathing, Arin right there at his side.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for an anon-request for Arin drawing Dan, with them both expecting it to be awkward but they end up feeling the opposite about it, on my grumps tumblr (damnavidans).
> 
> It's also heavily inspired by the time I actually did this, and probably even recognizable as such, so in case you ever find this, I love you, and I'm sorry I couldn't work in a line about the apeman here.


End file.
